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Looking at a long term relationship with Snapchat’s spectacled eyes

With the release of Snap Inc’s Spectacles, allowing users to take ten second videos through their eyes and integrate with the Snapchat platform, a lot of questions remain for marketers around social content creation.

CEO of renamed Snap Inc, Evan Spiegel has labeled Spectacles “a toy,” yet this introduction of hardware to the once purely social platform caused the company to rename itself as Snap Inc. (a camera company). While a lot of brands have already tried them out, will the device make it past the gimmick phase and disrupt the social space?

We spoke with Freda Kwok, principal consultant at QED Consulting and social media expert for further insight.

“Frankly, Spectacles is just a tool. Whether brands embrace storytelling from a first-person narrative or not is more of a creative and strategic direction that should be considered regardless,” Kwok said.

“New innovations are exciting and novel, but the key to good content is sustainability. We liken good social media content strategy to a romantic relationship. What you want to avoid is a one night stand, where everyone is interested only when it’s fun and exciting. Instead, aim for a marriage; where conversations are deeper, have more meaning, and a lot more emotional attachment as well,” she said.

Kwok argued that while Spectacles will help set the platform apart from other social players it hasn’t necessarily offered a significant change to storytelling and the way consumers create content.

“Snap Inc. now calls itself a camera company, instead of a social media network. This distinction can work in its favour, especially with many of Instagram’s features cannibalising on the appeal of Snapchat.”

She added the functions on Spectacles do not differ extensively from what someone can do with a phone. If anything, it just eases the convenience factor and enhances the ‘DIY-ness’ of Snapchatting.

“A surgeon for instance, can snap himself performing a surgery from his point of view, rather than having someone stand beside him to do so on his behalf,” she added.

She added that at its core, storytelling and what makes a good story has not changed. Tools like Spectacles just help us to create them a lot faster and more conveniently.

So what are the downsides? We ask Kwok.

Kwok said although Snap would want to differentiate itself as much as possible using Spectacles it must open up and integrate with other social platforms and content styles to survive.

“Spectacles only work through Snapchat at the moment. If it truly wants to evolve into a camera company, they will have to collaborate with other platforms to support overall content creation and enable content to be created that’s suitable for different social media channels, such as allowing for recording of different content lengths beyond just the ten seconds,” she emphasised.

But Kwok brands against changing their approach to social media content so fast.

“Never chase technology for technology’s sake. Tools and technology helps us to do it faster, get better insights, and with higher accuracy of feedback. However, a lot of the core fundamentals and strategic considerations do not change such as the importance of listening and analysing what appeals to your audience, and creating content that has value to them.”

Join Kwok for a hands-on Social Media Content Creation MasterClass workshop on 27 December in Singapore and learn strategies used by Fortune 500 Companies on engaging followers and building a long-term content strategy. Contact Zul on +65 9678 9958 or at dzulfiqarr@marketing-interactive.com to book your place or enquire about group discounts.